Summary
Health indicators are measures of aspects of health and the health system that can be used to monitor the effectiveness and impact of the health system and of specific interventions to improve health and provide effective, accessible and quality health care.
An initial set of indicators for asthma monitoring was developed in 2000 by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare after asthma was made a National Health Priority Area in Australia in 1999. In 2004, the Australian Centre for Asthma Monitoring (ACAM) reviewed the proposed indicators under the auspices of the Australian System for Monitoring Asthma and published a set of recommended national asthma indicators. A detailed asthma data development plan was released in 2005, which outlined a range of projects that would address the data deficiencies that had been identified for the purposes of monitoring the recommended asthma indicators.
This report reviews the outcomes of the indicator review, the lessons learnt through experience with various data sources, progress so far with asthma data development and suggests future directions for national asthma monitoring.
Preliminary material: Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Summary
Introduction
Status of current recommended asthma indicators
- Prevalence of ever having doctor-diagnosed asthma
- Prevalence of current asthma
- Prevalence of recent wheeze
- Prevalence of airway hyper responsiveness
- Impact of asthma on quality of life
- Index of asthma control
- Death rate for asthma, all ages
- Death rate for asthma, persons aged 5-34 years
- Prevalence of smoking in people with asthma
- Prevalence of smoking in the household where children with asthma reside
- Prevalence of occupational asthma
- Proportion of schools using the Asthma Friendly Schools program
- Hospital separation rate for asthma
- Hospital patient days for asthma
- Hospital re-admissions for asthma within 28 days
- Number of individuals with separations for asthma
- Rate of emergency department attendance for asthma
- Rate of asthma-related general practice encounters
- Rate of Asthma 3+ Visit Plan payments
- Health-care visits for acute episodes of asthma
- Proportion of people with asthma who have a written asthma action plan
- Proportion of people with asthma who use 'preventers' regularly
- The proportion of people with asthma who have had recent spirometry
- Costs of asthma
Review of data development activities
- Survey questions
- Data linkage
- Validation of coding
- Other data development
Future directions
- Ongoing monitoring
- Refining asthma indicators
End matter: References; Appendix A